Which of the activities would be illegal? The article concludes that while these activities may be unsavory, they probably aren't illegal: "So is it legal for Yelp to do all this? Probably, according to Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation."

For reference, I'm a Bay Area business owner with positive reviews on Yelp. I recently received solicitations for advertising, and noticed that our most negative review (non-recent, low votes) appeared to have been moved to the top of the list just prior to the advertising pitch. The sales agent was asked about this, and responded: "The review algorithm has a number of interesting caveats in it. Some of which are best match and relevancy issues."

We did not receive promises of special treatment or the repositioning of this review, but I felt this was implied. While I don't feel that Yelp was acting illegally, I lost a lot of faith in their business practices as a result. I did not participate in this article, but I believe it is accurately reported.

For what it's worth, that negative review (which was from a customer with a legitimate complaint) is now back in a more neutral location, without any further action on our part. Perhaps (and I hope) this was a few rogue employees on the sales team, and the company has now cleaned up its act.

If they're paying employees to write bad reviews without regard to their actual experience, it's libel.

If it's an extortion scheme as the article implies, it's tortious business interference.

There could also be issues under the Lanham Act.

There is no such thing as rogue people on a sales team. In most of the phone jockey shops I've ever been in/around (mostly in the credit card industry) they teach you what is in compliance, but then set unrealistic sales quotas. The idea being that the brighter employees will learn the underhanded tricks they need to get ahead, and the straight arrow ones will fall behind and either quit or get fired.

Running telemarketing shops like that lets management have plausible deniability in the case of a lawsuit yet maintain a status quo that would be out of compliance with any industry regulations.

This rings true, and seems like a theory that fits all the data nicely. Come to think of it, why would they go about it any other way?

I hear it's also a handy way for politicians to authorize torture and crime bosses to knock off their rivals.